Resolution: The United States Federal Government should abolish licensing requirements for physicians to perform medical practices.

HousekeepingPro asked me to vote on this debate. My personal view on the topic is undecided as I don"t know anything about the topic, this is the first I have heard of anything on this issue. My personal position is by default undecided. Since I strive to judge objectively from a "tabula rasa" standpoint, the defaulted position of undecided helps with this considerably.

The BoP is shared since the resolution is normative. The BoP (or Burden of Proof) is obligation a party holds to warrant their position in a discussion. If we are discussing whether something "ought" to be done, the burdens are by default equal because each party is attempting to convince a neutral "tabula rasa" judge. As long as the judge is truly objective and standing in the middle, the distance each side has to cover to move the judge to the positive or negative side *is* equal. To have anything else would impose an unfair disadvantage to one of the debaters; effectively pissing on the sanctity of debate.

The state of the status quo is especially irrelevent to the position of burdens in a debate. Letting the status quo factor into the decided burdens is an argumentum ad populum fallacy. Just because everyone believes in Bigfoot doesn"t mean that it's any less absurd. Do the people who believe in Bigfoot no longer have to provide any proof of his existence? Do they no longer have a burden of proof? Of course not, it's absurd to think so. So in the end, both sides have the equal duty to convince me to move to their side.

I am posting this in the forums for a few reasons. Firstly, it encourages quality voting. When people are able to readily see what a good vote looks like, and how they should vote, it encourages them to vote likewise. Secondly, it gives a good platform for discussion of the RFD. If someone has qualms with it, they are able to reply and quote directly the part in the RFD, I get a notification about it, and the discussion over the RFD is made public so that others can learn from it.

I do have qualms with the limited amount of information I am given. I am not told the round structure of the debate, the time limits of each round, whether new arguments are allowed in the final round, or any definitions of what's being debated (especially what a license gives). All of these hinder my ability to judge the debate.

Pro"s ArgumentsI have difficulty understanding Pro, and this is a major problem because lucidity is paramount to presenting a strong case. Pro talks really fast which causes stuttering, pausing, slurring, etc., making understanding him difficult. Regardless, I try to decipher.

Pro argues that licenses limit the amount of firms that can be created in the market of medicine. The impact of this is not clear? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What does this mean in regards to healthcare? I am not told any impact for why this constitutes a reason for abolishing licenses.

Pro then explains that 5% of physicians are accountable for over half of deaths due to malpractice, yet they are not punished for their actions. I fail to see the connection to the debate again. Why is this a reason to abolish licenses? Would abolishing licenses make doctors any more likely to be punished. It is not explained why having physicians prosecuted and punished would be more likely if licenses were abolished. Before I can give this any impact I need to be told how this is reasoning to affirm the resolution.

Pro does a defensive argument against the argument that abolishing licenses will result in the influx of wackos who don"t know what they are doing, resulting in a substantial increase in malpractice. Pro argues that this is false because federal regulations will still stay in place such as the FDA.

Pro argues that prices will drop because people will look for the lowest cost (i.e. capitalism will happen).

Pro also brings up in round 2 that licenses restrict information about their doctors, thus consumers aren"t able to make sound decisions on healthcare

Con"s ArgumentsThe way Con speaks, the speed and sentence structure is lucid and clear, which makes it easy on me as a judge to analyze the debate. Although, the direct purpose of what he is saying is not clear as to whether it is offensive or defensive. For example, Con attacks Pro"s argument that free market would lead to a better market and lower prices by saying it is bullsh!t. This intro would suggest explaining why lower prices would not happen. This would be a negating, defensive impact. But then Con goes off on another road unrelated to the free market point and on an offensive argument; incompetent physicians.

Pro already did a defensive argument on this subject in his opening arguments. The reasoning Pro brought up was that federal regulations would stay in place such as the FDA, which would protect against incompetence. Con plays off this argument, using Lannan"s cited statistic yet drops the entire point of Pro"s defensive argument: federal regulations would take over. The way Con structures the argument is confusing as well, which is not necessarily his fault as Pro shouldn"t bring up defensive arguments in the opening argument stage, it fvcks up the entire structure, every time. Con attempts to interject parts of Lannan"s case and rebut that, then embark on some offensive arguments, and then some rebuttals until it's all mashed up together. Its confusing.

The way to continue with clarity when a defensive argument has already been done is to present a completely offensive argument on the topic. Bring up nothing that has already been said. After you are done, say, "Pro does a defensive argument of this argument in R1 by saying (summarize the argument, so i.e. federal regulations would still stay in place)," then do a rebuttal of that. Just act like the defensive argument was actually just a rebuttal. This way, it is clear to the judges what the hell you"re trying to say, as well as helping to keep track of offensive/defensive impacts, who was arguing what, etc.

Regardless, Con"s offensive argument is that--citing Lannan"s statistic--lots of people die of medical malpractice, and this is a problem. Licensure ensures that this won"t happen by keeping out unqualified doctors.

Con also argues that if there is no system in place to ensure that people know what they are doing, the people will lose trust in healthcare. This would lead to ineffective treatments, and less incentive to seek treatment.

ClashThe first clash comes by Con, albeit indirectly. Con argues that licenses will end up saving people money in the long term by preventing incompetent doctors from hurting them. This would obviously lead to money loss for the consumer. This is presented as an offensive argument, yet it directly negates Pro"s opening argument on the free market lowering prices for consumers, thus it is more efficient to put it in the clash category. The problem with both side"s cases on economics is that they don"t directly attack each other"s arguments. Con just says he doesn"t understand Pro"s argument on marginal costs, and Pro just repeats his opening argument about marginal costs and doesn"t actually focus on Con"s argument directly. The only difference happens when Con attacks Pro"s argument about the free market by bringing up that when we tried to do a free market system it ended up being disastrous which is why licensing requirements were created. Thus, in order to avoid disaster, licences should not be abolished. Pro drops this and just repeats his marginal cost argument, which Con responds to by bringing up that marginal costs are irrelevant because of the affordable care act which would eliminate that. Thus, Con wins the economic argument

by showing marginal costs are irrelevant, and bringing up the past of free markets. I don"t like giving this argument to Con, because it is brought up in the final round. But as I mentioned in the beginning, there was no rule against arguments in the final round, thus I count it.

Pro attacks Con"s argument about licensure ensuring safety of the consumer from malpractice by explaining that in the status quo, where there is licensure, the death toll is still ridiculously high. Con responds by explaining that it would be even higher if incompetent physicians were openly allowed to practice medicine. Basically pointing out a nirvana fallacy, just because licensure isn"t perfect, it is better than the alternative of no licensure at all. Pro responds by citing a statistic for the amount of incompetent physicians that have licenses and have not been prosecuted or found guilty. Yet, this seems irrelevant firstly because the same fallacy as the first questions arises; nirvana fallacy. Secondly because licensing does not require discipline or prosecution. Or at least, licensing based on common knowledge as there was no definition provided for what a "license" would entail. So based on common knowledge of a license, this is irrelevant. Con correctly points both of these points out exactly in his answer. Pro continues attacking the subject of malpractice by pointing out that Con dropped his point that federal regulations will still exist, meaning that the trust and malpractice issues won"t be a problem. Con needs to show why federal regulations won"t work, and that only licenses will. Or that licenses will work better than federal regulations. Pro furthers this point by showing that before there were licenses for doctors there were groups that ensured that the only doctors able to go into the field were competent physicians. Con finally responds in the very last round, explaining that licenses protect consumers before something bad happens to them, rather than after the fact which federal legislation does. Con also points out federal legislation has to do with pharmaceuticals, not the actual practice of medicine. There was no rule told to me about arguments in the final round, and everyone seemed ok with it, thus I will count it. Con effectively shows me why licensure reduces medical malpractice more than federal legislation would, thus I value licensure in order to ensure public safety. Con"s argument on malpractice extends.

Con attacks Pro"s argument that abolishing licenses will benefit the pursuit of science by pointing out that if we have people entering the market that aren"t qualified and don"t have knowledge of medicine, these people aren"t going to be contributing anything to this "pursuit of science." Con also brings up an offensive impact in the rebuttal against Pro by bringing up that Con"s side (having licenses) would benefit scientific research more than Con"s side would. Physicians would be required to continue contributing the field and contribute learning about new developments. Pro brings up that multiple unqualified doctors have contributed to the field such as curing blue baby syndrome, and pioneering open heart surgery. This directly negates Con"s entire logic that unqualified doctors won"t contribute to the field, because as Pro showed: they do. Thus, Pro wins the advancement of scientific innovation argument.

Con drops the new argument that Pro brings up in R2 about restricting the medical information available to consumers; saying that, "I don"t know what that was about," and skipping it. I could understand if the economic part of lannan"s arguments were confusing, because they were confusing af, but the information argument was clear and easy to understand. Thus, this does count as a drop. In the last round, Con claims that the argument is irrelevant to the debate but the argument simply is. If maybe licensing does not actually require censoring of medical information to the consumer as Pro claims, then Con should tell me this. But he doesn"t, he just claims it's irrelevant when it is entirely relevant. Con then argues certain groups of people that have lower education or in a poorer class don"t have access to the information anyways. If licenses are abolished, those social classes are most vulnerable to being harmed. But doing analysis on the debate, this reasoning is a nirvana fallacy because in Con"s world no one is able to get information on their doctor, but in Pro"s world everyone but the aforementioned groups would be able to. As Pro establishes having access to this information is a good thing, I"m inclined to accept Pro"s side based on the reasoning that a partial fix is better than no fix at all. Thus, Pro"s argument about censoring information extends.

Pro attacks Con"s argument on public trust by bring up short sightedness effect, showing that short-term goals are more likely to happen than long-term. Pro also ties it into his information argument showing that lack of information leads to loss of public trust. Since Pro won the information argument, the rebuttal is valid and the societal trust argument is actually turned to Pro"s side as a offensive argument.

ConclusionIn the end, on Pro"s side I have the advancement of scientific innovation in the medical field, the public is able to make sound decisions on which doctor to go to, and gaining the public trust in the medical field. On Con"s side I have protecting people from medical malpractice, and lowering the price of healthcare. How do I weigh the impacts against each other?

Both Pro and Con stress the importance of scientific research on medicine, and as medicine"s inherent goal is to save lives, bettering scientific research on medicine will save lives. Pro elaborates on this bringing up curing blue baby syndrome, and open-heart surgery, but on neither of them am I told how many lives they save. All I know is that they save lives, but I need to know the amount in order to weigh. This makes it difficult because I wasn"t given a number on the amount of lives saved from malpractice either, I am given the number taken currently, but the impact for Con is how many more will be killed if licensure is abolished. I am not told the number, just that lives will be saved. Continuing on the topic of lives, Con brings up the importance of public trust in the medical field by explaining that trust leads to making people actually going in to seek treatment. If the public doesn"t have much trust in the medical field, people are a lot less likely to go to the doctor, which is obviously important. Now this is an argument I can actually give value to, not exact value as a number, but significant weight. This is because it is a truism that people go to the doctor, almost everyone goes to the doctor. Thus, if people were deterred in going to the doctor, I am given basically the entire population of the United States, which is a large number. The impact thus lies on how much trust impacts the treatment of people. Con says, "trust is absolutely essential to effective treatment." Essential means a lot. It means that without trust, effective treatment cannot happen. Which is a huge impact given I am considering the whole population of the United States. Thus, public trust would outweigh the protection from medical malpractice.

Con does not give a value to how important lowering the price of healthcare is. How much is it lowered by? How is this beneficial? Con does not tie it into saving lives at all either. Neither Pro nor Con argues that lower health care will result in more people visiting the doctor. So all I have is people having to pay an unknown amount of money less for health care. But the lives that are taken by ineffective treatment significantly outweighs losing some money, as lives are the most impactful metric in the debate. Thus, lives would inherently outweigh money, especially given how many lives we are considering.

Thus, Pro"s public trust argument solely outweighs both of Con"s arguments. Coupled with scientific innovation in the medical field, as well as letting the public make sound decisions gives the win to Pro.

Too many problems to name them all. For starters, I specifically addressed Lannan's information argument in R3. I refer you to 25:40 in the video:

"First, Lannan's information argument, the restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure, so all I can say to that is that it's totally irrelevant to the debate."

I don't know how you could plausibly interpret this as anything but me saying that medical licenses don't restrict information.

The resolution is about medical licensure -- and medical licensure is a barrier to entering the market, not a restriction of information. Lannan's point was primarily defensive: he's saying that consumers will be able to sift through information, thus negating my public trust argument.

The biggest problem with your RFD is that it assumes Lannan has all this offense on public trust, offense that Lannan never made. Nowhere did Lannan say abolition increases public trust, much less that his offense outweighs all the increased deaths from medical malpractice, the increased spread of disease, and all the economic stuff. Nor did Lannan ever give any sort of reason as to why/how abolition would actually increase public trust.

To be clear, an argument that consumers have access to more information tells you nothing about whether public trust will increase, especially in light of my point that public trust is decreasing precisely because of increased medical malpractice. Lannan's point is defensive: information will somehow allow consumers to find quality care. I countered by saying poor folks -- the one's who can't afford quality care -- are the ones who are also unlikely to have access to the information.

To be fair, making sense of Lannan's argument is tough. But while I can't blame you for misunderstanding it, I can blame you for making every possible inference in Lannan's favor. That is not only unfair judging but given the lack of clarity in Lannan's argument, if anything, inferences should be made in my favor, not his. Yet when it comes to weighing impacts and probabilities, completely vague impacts and probabilities, you literally draw every possible inference in Lannan's favor, despite lack of any evidence for those inferences (plus specific arguments on my side against the assumptions underlying Lannan's argument).

That is the main reason your RFD is both wrong and unfair, but there's a bunch of other problems in your analysis of the other arguments. I don't feel like getting into it, because I doubt this will matter much to you -- you'll probably defend yourself, or your reasoning, or something like that, and that's okay with me, I don't have any delusions of convincing you you're wrong, because it's virtually impossible to convince a judge they're wrong. You probably don't even realize you're making arguments and inferences in Lannan's favor, so there's not much to say on that.

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

For the record, someone saying something is the case doesn't automatically make it true for purposes of a debate. If I say, "requiring drivers' licenses restricts information," you don't have to credit that claim unless I actually provide evidence for the claim. That's the same with medical licenses. Neither of these things directly restrict information. They are a barrier to doing something at the front-end, that's all.

So, when I say in the debate, "I don't know what the information point has to do with this debate," I'm signalling to Lannan (and voters) that it's simply not been sufficiently explained by Lannan. Lannan offers no explanation of how the licenses restrict information. It's not inherent to licensure, so that needs more development than just an assertion. I specifically point this out when I say "restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure."

So it blows my mind that you could say I dropped the point... when there was never a point there in the first place.

But to say that somehow this non-point gives Lannan so much offense as to outweigh everything I said throughout the entire debate, increased deaths from medical malpractice, that's... just bad judging.

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

At 4/29/2016 11:58:22 PM, Hayd wrote:Pro also ties it into his information argument showing that lack of information leads to loss of public trust.

I don't believe Lannan showed that medical licensure restricts information. Nor did he show that lack of information leads to public trust.

Where is this in the debate? Where is Pro showing that medical licensure restricts information or that lack of information leads to loss of public trust?

Either way, for the sake argument, let's assume Lannan shows both. It renders the rest of your RFD absurd:

In the end, on Pro"s side I have the advancement of scientific innovation in the medical field, the public is able to make sound decisions on which doctor to go to, and gaining the public trust in the medical field. On Con"s side I have protecting people from medical malpractice, and lowering the price of healthcare. How do I weigh the impacts against each other?

I'm going to stop here. Are you saying there is no public trust in the medical field in my world, and that the public will "gain" trust in Pro's world?

If so, the absurdity is apparent immediately, when you write:

Con brings up the importance of public trust in the medical field by explaining that trust leads to making people actually going in to seek treatment. If the public doesn"t have much trust in the medical field, people are a lot less likely to go to the doctor, which is obviously important. Now this is an argument I can actually give value to, not exact value as a number, but significant weight. This is because it is a truism that people go to the doctor, almost everyone goes to the doctor.

Huh? So, you're saying it's a truism that people go to the doctor in the status quo, a world with medical licensure... but in my world, the assumed status quo (that's the implication of the word "abolishing"), a world with medical licensure, they won't go to the doctor...

Well, let's see what you mean:

Thus, if people were deterred in going to the doctor, I am given basically the entire population of the United States, which is a large number. The impact thus lies on how much trust impacts the treatment of people.

Yeah, big impact. Where is this going? Let's take a look:

Thus, public trust would outweigh the protection from medical malpractice.

Wait, what? The impact I proposed would outweigh the protection from medical malpractice, even though that's an impact in my favor. This makes no sense. The importance of public trust is that it

Huh? What's Pro's impact on public trust? The only impact given is mine, under the assumption that we lose public trust. The status quo is not a world where we "lose" public trust. By your own admission ("it's a truism"), it's a world where we have it, we have public trust. What the fvck is Pro outweighing my argument with?

Wait, it gets better:

Coupled with scientific innovation in the medical field, as well as letting the public make sound decisions gives the win to Pro.

Huh? Letting the public make sound decisions? That sounds like a public trust argument. What the hell distinction are you making there? It's definitely not one Lannan makes in his debate.

The point of all this is that you're making internally inconsistent inferences in Lannan's favor, inferences that are absurd, unsubstantiated by anything in the debate, and argued against in the debate, sometimes explicitly, other times through obvious implications of what I was saying.

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

Too many problems to name them all. For starters, I specifically addressed Lannan's information argument in R3. I refer you to 25:40 in the video:

"First, Lannan's information argument, the restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure, so all I can say to that is that it's totally irrelevant to the debate."

I don't know how you could plausibly interpret this as anything but me saying that medical licenses don't restrict information.

The resolution is about medical licensure -- and medical licensure is a barrier to entering the market, not a restriction of information. Lannan's point was primarily defensive: he's saying that consumers will be able to sift through information, thus negating my public trust argument.

I addressed this in the RFD.

" In the last round, Con claims that the argument is irrelevant to the debate but the argument simply is. If maybe licensing does not actually require censoring of medical information to the consumer as Pro claims, then Con should tell me this. But he doesn"t, he just claims it's irrelevant when it is entirely relevant."

As I also said in the RFD, I was never given a full definition of what licensure entails. Thus my only idea of it comes from what you guys say in the debate. This is unfair, and I agree. Which is why you should have defined it in the beginning. Regardless, you and lannan have two different ideas of what licensure is. You say licensure does not restrict information, and lannan says it does. Who am I supposed to side with? The reason you give me is exactly as you quoted. You just assert it is so, you don't give a source of why it is so. Lannan cites Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom (see 13:40), showing how licenses restrict information. Thus, I side with lannan on this.

I agree when lannan brings this up it is a rebuttal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have offensive impact. The argument has offensive impact. We ought to abolish medical licensure because it will allow consumers to make more sound decisions on their health care. That is entirely offensive. It is also a rebuttal to your public trust argument, which I addressed in my RFD:

"Pro also ties it into his information argument showing that lack of information leads to loss of public trust. Since Pro won the information argument, the rebuttal is valid and the societal trust argument is actually turned to Pro"s side as a offensive argument."

The biggest problem with your RFD is that it assumes Lannan has all this offense on public trust, offense that Lannan never made. Nowhere did Lannan say abolition increases public trust, much less that his offense outweighs all the increased deaths from medical malpractice, the increased spread of disease, and all the economic stuff. Nor did Lannan ever give any sort of reason as to why/how abolition would actually increase public trust.

Lannan turned the argument. Thus the offensive impact you had on the argument was turned to offensive impact on lannan's side. Lannan did give reasoning for why abolition would increase public trust, see 20:03

At the end of the debate, I am left over with all the arguments that extended through the debate. My reason for decision comes from analysis on which side has more weight. I can do analysis on weight without the debaters having to tell me what the weight is.

To be clear, an argument that consumers have access to more information tells you nothing about whether public trust will increase, especially in light of my point that public trust is decreasing precisely because of increased medical malpractice. Lannan's point is defensive: information will somehow allow consumers to find quality care. I countered by saying poor folks -- the one's who can't afford quality care -- are the ones who are also unlikely to have access to the information.

Lannan had an offensive impact, I addressed the poor people part in my RFD:

"Con then argues certain groups of people that have lower education or in a poorer class don"t have access to the information anyways. If licenses are abolished, those social classes are most vulnerable to being harmed. But doing analysis on the debate, this reasoning is a nirvana fallacy because in Con"s world no one is able to get information on their doctor, but in Pro"s world everyone but the aforementioned groups would be able to. As Pro establishes having access to this information is a good thing, I"m inclined to accept Pro"s side based on the reasoning that a partial fix is better than no fix at all. Thus, Pro"s argument about censoring information extends."

To be fair, making sense of Lannan's argument is tough. But while I can't blame you for misunderstanding it, I can blame you for making every possible inference in Lannan's favor. That is not only unfair judging but given the lack of clarity in Lannan's argument, if anything, inferences should be made in my favor, not his. Yet when it comes to weighing impacts and probabilities, completely vague impacts and probabilities, you literally draw every possible inference in Lannan's favor, despite lack of any evidence for those inferences (plus specific arguments on my side against the assumptions underlying Lannan's argument).

The lack of clarity on lannan's part falls on the economic stuff with marginal costs, equilibriams, demand turning rightward, etc. But that argument was given to you, you won the economic part of the debate. Can you give me an example of inferences I made? besides the public trust/information one I already covered

That is the main reason your RFD is both wrong and unfair, but there's a bunch of other problems in your analysis of the other arguments. I don't feel like getting into it, because I doubt this will matter much to you -- you'll probably defend yourself, or your reasoning, or something like that, and that's okay with me, I don't have any delusions of convincing you you're wrong, because it's virtually impossible to convince a judge they're wrong. You probably don't even realize you're making arguments and inferences in Lannan's favor, so there's not much to say on that.

It does matter to me because I want to be a good judge and I value your opinion. I'm surprisingly easy to convince. I'm not really stubborn at all. If I'm shown I'm wrong I accept it because its less emarrassing than continuing to insist I'm right. I might be making inferences, but I don't see any inferences I made that wasn't after-debate analysis. But I'm open to the possibility, which is why I'm open to you citing them for me.

At 4/30/2016 5:43:27 PM, FourTrouble wrote:For the record, someone saying something is the case doesn't automatically make it true for purposes of a debate. If I say, "requiring drivers' licenses restricts information," you don't have to credit that claim unless I actually provide evidence for the claim. That's the same with medical licenses. Neither of these things directly restrict information. They are a barrier to doing something at the front-end, that's all.

So, when I say in the debate, "I don't know what the information point has to do with this debate," I'm signalling to Lannan (and voters) that it's simply not been sufficiently explained by Lannan. Lannan offers no explanation of how the licenses restrict information. It's not inherent to licensure, so that needs more development than just an assertion. I specifically point this out when I say "restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure."

Thats confusing then, because when you say the information point doesn't have to do with the debate, it seems like you are saying that it is not relevent to the debate. If you thought that lannan did not sufficiently explain, then you should have said lannan did not specifically explain. I addressed this in my last response, you gave no reason for me to believe that information was irrelevent to licenses, lannan cited a book by a proffessor or something. Based on that, I have to side with lannan

So it blows my mind that you could say I dropped the point... when there was never a point there in the first place.

There was a point there, and a powerful point. Consumer's ability to choose a good doctor is important not only to safety but to liberty.

But to say that somehow this non-point gives Lannan so much offense as to outweigh everything I said throughout the entire debate, increased deaths from medical malpractice, that's... just bad judging.

Public trust outweighed deaths due to malpractice because the only weight you tied to deaths due to malpractice was in cross examination when you said it would be more than it is now.

I don't care for your rationalizations. You wanted to vote for Lannan, and you found a way to do it.

Let's be clear: I didn't say "restriction of information is irrelevant to the debate." If I had said that, and only that, it would allow two plausible interpretations of my argument. It would allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure restricts information but that's irrelevant." Or it would also allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure doesn't restrict information, so that's irrelevant." You chose the latter, thus drawing inferences in favor of Lannan.

But all that is beside the point, because I explicitly indicated the latter interpretation when I said: "The restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure, therefore it is irrelevant to the debate." How the fvck do you interpret my statement -- "the restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure" -- as "medical licenses restrict information but that's irrelevant"? You're distorting the meaning of what I said, and in doing so making a massive inference in Lannan's favor, instead of giving my words their obvious meaning.

As I also said in the RFD, I was never given a full definition of what licensure entails.

Dude, licensure is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. It didn't need definitions. It is what it is.

Do you know what a drivers license is? It's a license to drive. Do you know what a law license is? It's a license to practice law. This isn't a difficult concept. It's a license to do something, without which you are legally prohibited from doing that thing.

Thus my only idea of it comes from what you guys say in the debate.

That's the dumbest fvcking thing I've ever heard. The definition is what it is, nothing more, nothing less. No debater could define every word they use in their debate. Some words might be defined when they have technical meanings, or when their meaning is unclear, or when they have conflicting meanings. But when words aren't defined, they're given their obvious meaning.

Let me put this into context for you. Suppose you're having a debate on drivers licenses. if the debaters don't define the term, what definition will you use? The common understanding that a drivers license is a license to drive, nothing more, nothing less. Licensure may have other effects, indirect effects, but those effects need to be argued not by definition but by evidence and reasoning.

This is unfair, and I agree.

Okay, good. You agree that your approach to definitions (and thus judging) is unfair. Not sure what else there is to discuss here.

Change your approach, make it fair, and in turn render a fairer judgment.

Which is why you should have defined it in the beginning.

What the fvck? Your approach to definitions is unfair. That has nothing to do with whether we defined terms at the beginning.

Basically, you are deciding this debate based on an assumption -- an incorrect assumption -- that medical licenses restrict information by definition, despite it being obvious that licenses don't inherently restrict information.

I'm confident Lannan is not saying that medical licenses inherently restrict information. To the extent that's what he said, that claim is so obviously wrong as to not require any response.

You say licensure does not restrict information, and lannan says it does.

He's not saying it restricts information by definition. To the extent he is, I would never have accepted this debate.

Lannan's advocacy is that we should abolish medical licensure. Lannan cannot win this debate by arguing that we should medical licenses that restrict information, because that's my ground for argument.

Dude, I can't cite a source to show you that medical licenses don't inherently restrict information by definition.

To the extent Lannan wants to show licenses restrict information indirectly, he needs to show how that is the case, not cite a book I've never read and have no access to. His claim is unproven and requires no response.

Thus, I side with lannan on this.

For dumb reasons that are unfair to me as a debater (nowhere in the resolution is there any indication that I was forced to support "medical licenses that restrict information," only "medical licenses").

The argument has offensive impact. We ought to abolish medical licensure because it will allow consumers to make more sound decisions on their health care. That is entirely offensive.

This has nothing to do with public trust.

Lannan turned the argument. Thus the offensive impact you had on the argument was turned to offensive impact on lannan's side. Lannan did give reasoning for why abolition would increase public trust, see 20:03

I don't see any reason given that public trust in doctors will increase, nor do I see any reason that increasing public trust will have any impact.

"Con then argues certain groups of people that have lower education or in a poorer class don"t have access to the information anyways. If licenses are abolished, those social classes are most vulnerable to being harmed. But doing analysis on the debate, this reasoning is a nirvana fallacy because in Con"s world no one is able to get information on their doctor, but in Pro"s world everyone but the aforementioned groups would be able to.

So, Pro's word against mine... because Pro says they'll have access, and I say they won't. Who do you side with? Pro, always Pro.

I don't even know why I'm addressing your points. You are obviously going to rationalize your RFD however you can, as literally anyone who ever casts a bad RFD will do.

If you want to get better at judging, think about what I've said until you understand it as correct. Don't argue with me or try rationalizing your biases, because that's just going to solidify them. Again, confirmation bias is the real problem here. Not much I can do about that, no matter what I say. Extremely intelligent people can rationalize the dumbest things. That is what you're doing here.

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

At 4/30/2016 6:30:05 PM, Hayd wrote:Public trust outweighed deaths due to malpractice because the only weight you tied to deaths due to malpractice was in cross examination when you said it would be more than it is now.

And what weight did Lannan give to public trust?

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

This RFD is upsetting not because I lost the debate but because the reasoning provided fails to do the debate justice.

There underlying point of the debate is this: when you remove barriers to entry, you ensure that prices are competitive. At the same time, you also have a decrease in quality. That's what the debate is about.

The stuff about "information" simply has nothing to do with this debate, because it has nothing to do with medical licensure. Lannan may have claimed otherwise, anda name-dropped Hayek, but that doesn't mean you, as a judge, should credit his claims, just because he made them.

I mean, if that's the case, you're encouraging someone to just make as many claims as possible in 3 minutes, all supported by some name-dropping (e.g. Hayek said Y, Friedman said X, Rawls said Z), and then at the end of the debate, extend all the idiotic claims your opponent chose not to address, because your opponent didn't have time and made judgment calls about which ones were so unmeritorious as to require no response.

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From the debate, do you understand how medical licenses restrict information? I don't. I still don't.

But let's assume you were somehow able to figure out, from Lannan's argument, how medical licenses restrict information. Even then, there's still the question: is it possible to have medical licenses that don't restrict information? I indicate that the answer is yes.

That means any impact Lannan has from the information restrictions is not enough to affirm the resolution, because the resolution is about medical licensure, not medical licensure with information restrictions.

If you'd like a vote on your debate, please send me a link. I'll do my best to offer a sufficient RFD in your favor.

Also: If you'd like to vote bomb a debate and need help crafting a sufficient RFD, let me know.

The central clash of this debate is whether abolishing medical licensure requirements would increase or decrease the number of incompetent doctors in the medical profession.

Lannan argues that the number would decrease because (1) private, self-regulating organizations of doctors would start forming like they did before medical licensure requirements existed, (2) more 'information' would be available to consumers, thus allowing them to only choose competent doctors, and (3) other anti-malpractice laws would still exist to fulfill the role of medical licensure. Meanwhile, FourTrouble argues the obvious, stating that without licensure requirements, anyone can become a doctor regardless of their educational credentials or skill-level, which will inevitably result in more incompetent doctors entering the market.

Because of the way in which the debaters framed this clash, Lannan's arguments basically serve as a rebuttal to FT's argument by painting a picture of an alternative free market regime under which licensure isn't necessary to prevent incompetent doctors from practicing medicine. In other words, the victor of this clash depends on whether or not Lannan's points hold up,

Lannan's first point isn't convincing because he presents no solid evidence that such self-regulating organizations were actually effective in preventing malpractice. FT's narrative is more plausible, and more consistent with the general argument he's putting forth in this debate: medical licensure was implemented specifically *because* self-regulation wasn't doing a sufficient job.

Lannan did a completely insufficient job of explaining the second point. He provided no causal connection whatsoever between abolishing medical licensure and increasing the amount of 'information' available to consumers. FT correctly pointed this out by dismissing it as irrelevant to medical licensure, which is nothing more than a market entry barrier.

As for Lannan's third point, both sides made some broad assertions about 'other' anti-malpractice regulations without getting into any specifics. Lannan asserted that those other regulations would be sufficient to deter incompetent doctors from practicing, whereas FT asserts the opposite.... without any reason to believe one side over the other, I call it a draw.

Thus, I am left to conclude that Lannan's free market alternative would *not* produce fewer incompetent doctors than the status quo, and FT's argument tells me that it would actually have the effect of producing *more* incompetent doctors. It has been established that abolishing medical licensure would significantly increase the number of incompetent doctors in the medical profession.

Onto the other arguments in the debate...

FourTrouble public trust argument is a good one, and ultimately goes unrebutted, since Lannan's response is basically just extending his defeated argument regarding increased 'information'

Lannan also argued something about a reduction in healthcare costs, but his explanation of it was so incoherent that I have no idea how to weigh it. Something about "marginal cost wars"...? In a debate, it is the obligation of the debaters to explain their arguments in a way that someone with highschool-level reading comprehension can understand them, and Lannan did not fulfill it.

So, in conclusion, Lannan's advocacy (abolishing medical licensure) would result in an influx of incompetent doctors entering the market and reduce public trust in the medical profession, whereas FT's advocacy (maintaining the status quo) has the benefit of avoiding those harms. Therefore, I vote Con.

I don't care for your rationalizations. You wanted to vote for Lannan, and you found a way to do it.

Actually I was rooting for you the whole time, mainly because it seemed like you just winged it. That made me want you to win lol. But I don't like or dislike one debater or one side over the other, so this assertion doesn't make sense.

Let's be clear: I didn't say "restriction of information is irrelevant to the debate." If I had said that, and only that, it would allow two plausible interpretations of my argument. It would allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure restricts information but that's irrelevant." Or it would also allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure doesn't restrict information, so that's irrelevant." You chose the latter, thus drawing inferences in favor of Lannan.

The fact that I am forced to make inferences based on the ambiguity of what you are saying poses an issue in itself. Thus, getting mad at me interpreting it wrong isn't exactly fair. Regardless, I am not making inferences based on whether it benefits one debater or not, I make inferences based on what is said in the debate.

You say that that isn't all that you said. What else did you say then? Can you show me where else you mentioned information?

What you did say is at 17:20"In terms of restricting information, I don't know what that was about so I'm just going to ignore it."

The only other thing you say is at 25:42"Lannan's information argument--information has nothing to do with medical licensure so all I can say to that is...that is totally irrelevant to the debate."

And then you bring up the lower classes argument which I addressed in my RFD

So basically, that is really all you say in the debate. I am given two claims: information is and isn't relevent to the debate. As a judge how am I to choose which side to go with? I am not given a definition of medical licensure so I have to go off what the debaters said. What source reasoning did you give me that shows that information is included in licenses? None, you merely assert that it isn't. So I have no reason from you. Lannan cites a book by friedrich hayek that says that information is relevent to licenses. Whose side should I take then? Lannans. I objectively have to side with lannan because you give me no source and lannan does, its a truism.

But all that is beside the point, because I explicitly indicated the latter interpretation when I said: "The restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure, therefore it is irrelevant to the debate." How the fvck do you interpret my statement -- "the restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure" -- as "medical licenses restrict information but that's irrelevant"? You're distorting the meaning of what I said, and in doing so making a massive inference in Lannan's favor, instead of giving my words their obvious meaning.

I did not intepret that from your comment that restriction has to do with medical licensure. In my RFD I say,

"If maybe licensing does not actually require censoring of medical information to the consumer as Pro claims, then Con should tell me this. But he doesn't"

Thats all I can get to right now, hopefully I can continue tomorrow. I ask that you hold off from responding until I can respond to the rest of your stuff.

I don't care for your rationalizations. You wanted to vote for Lannan, and you found a way to do it.

Let's be clear: I didn't say "restriction of information is irrelevant to the debate." If I had said that, and only that, it would allow two plausible interpretations of my argument. It would allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure restricts information but that's irrelevant." Or it would also allow you to interpret my argument as: "medical licensure doesn't restrict information, so that's irrelevant." You chose the latter, thus drawing inferences in favor of Lannan.

But all that is beside the point, because I explicitly indicated the latter interpretation when I said: "The restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure, therefore it is irrelevant to the debate." How the fvck do you interpret my statement -- "the restriction of information has nothing to do with medical licensure" -- as "medical licenses restrict information but that's irrelevant"? You're distorting the meaning of what I said, and in doing so making a massive inference in Lannan's favor, instead of giving my words their obvious meaning.

As I also said in the RFD, I was never given a full definition of what licensure entails.

Dude, licensure is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. It didn't need definitions. It is what it is.

Obviously both sides have different takes on what it is. Why should I value your interpretation of "what it is" over lannan's.?

Do you know what a drivers license is? It's a license to drive. Do you know what a law license is? It's a license to practice law. This isn't a difficult concept. It's a license to do something, without which you are legally prohibited from doing that thing.

You didn't bring this up in the debate. Since the term wasn't defined, the debaters are free to argue with what it is. You don't provide any argument like this in the debate

Thus my only idea of it comes from what you guys say in the debate.

That's the dumbest fvcking thing I've ever heard. The definition is what it is, nothing more, nothing less. No debater could define every word they use in their debate. Some words might be defined when they have technical meanings, or when their meaning is unclear, or when they have conflicting meanings. But when words aren't defined, they're given their obvious meaning.

Debaters should define the words in the resolution, the rest ought to be common sense or some official dictionary.

Let me put this into context for you. Suppose you're having a debate on drivers licenses. if the debaters don't define the term, what definition will you use? The common understanding that a drivers license is a license to drive, nothing more, nothing less. Licensure may have other effects, indirect effects, but those effects need to be argued not by definition but by evidence and reasoning.

Second, lannan does use evidence and reasoning, he cites a book by Hayek.

Which is why you should have defined it in the beginning.

What the fvck? Your approach to definitions is unfair. That has nothing to do with whether we defined terms at the beginning.

Basically, you are deciding this debate based on an assumption -- an incorrect assumption -- that medical licenses restrict information by definition, despite it being obvious that licenses don't inherently restrict information.

I'm confident Lannan is not saying that medical licenses inherently restrict information. To the extent that's what he said, that claim is so obviously wrong as to not require any response.

I am not told in R1 what a medical license is, thus I have to gleam it from the debaters. You give me no evidence or reasoning, lannan does. I side with lannan. I shouldn't have to do research on medical licenses, to have the judge look up anything on his own wouldn;t be right for it should be in debate. You didn't even make the analogy to drivers licenses in the debate either, you argued none of it in the debate.

You say licensure does not restrict information, and lannan says it does.

He's not saying it restricts information by definition. To the extent he is, I would never have accepted this debate.

He is arguing licenses restrict information. You should have clarified or defined terms in the beginning to avoid that

Lannan's advocacy is that we should abolish medical licensure. Lannan cannot win this debate by arguing that we should medical licenses that restrict information, because that's my ground for argument.

To the extent Lannan wants to show licenses restrict information indirectly, he needs to show how that is the case, not cite a book I've never read and have no access to. His claim is unproven and requires no response.

Since its a live debate we technically have access to zero sources. Thus if you have qualms with a source you can challenge it, which I suppose you could have done if you doubted that it was untrue.

Thus, I side with lannan on this.

For dumb reasons that are unfair to me as a debater (nowhere in the resolution is there any indication that I was forced to support "medical licenses that restrict information," only "medical licenses").

The argument has offensive impact. We ought to abolish medical licensure because it will allow consumers to make more sound decisions on their health care. That is entirely offensive.

This has nothing to do with public trust.

Lannan ties it to public trust later

Lannan turned the argument. Thus the offensive impact you had on the argument was turned to offensive impact on lannan's side. Lannan did give reasoning for why abolition would increase public trust, see 20:03

I don't see any reason given that public trust in doctors will increase, nor do I see any reason that increasing public trust will have any impact.

"Con then argues certain groups of people that have lower education or in a poorer class don"t have access to the information anyways. If licenses are abolished, those social classes are most vulnerable to being harmed. But doing analysis on the debate, this reasoning is a nirvana fallacy because in Con"s world no one is able to get information on their doctor, but in Pro"s world everyone but the aforementioned groups would be able to.

So, Pro's word against mine... because Pro says they'll have access, and I say they won't. Who do you side with? Pro, always Pro.

I don't even know why I'm addressing your points. You are obviously going to rationalize your RFD however you can, as literally anyone who ever casts a bad RFD will do.

If you want to get better at judging, think about what I've said until you understand it as correct. Don't argue with me or try rationalizing your biases, because that's just going to solidify them. Again, confirmation bias is the real problem here. Not much I can do about that, no matter what I say. Extremely intelligent people can rationalize the dumbest things. That is what you're doing here.

At 4/30/2016 7:36:43 PM, FourTrouble wrote:I'll even put it a different way.

From the debate, do you understand how medical licenses restrict information? I don't. I still don't.

But let's assume you were somehow able to figure out, from Lannan's argument, how medical licenses restrict information. Even then, there's still the question: is it possible to have medical licenses that don't restrict information? I indicate that the answer is yes.

That means any impact Lannan has from the information restrictions is not enough to affirm the resolution, because the resolution is about medical licensure, not medical licensure with information restrictions.

Yes, you should have brought up a counterplan, that would have worked beautifully. Sadly, you didn't do so in the debate